Program
One Hundred Twenty-Third Season Chicago Symphony Orchestra Riccardo Muti Music Director Pierre Boulez Helen Regenstein Conductor Emeritus Yo-Yo Ma Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant Global Sponsor of the CSO
Thursday, April 3, 2014, at 8:00 Saturday, April 5, 2014, at 8:00 Tuesday, April 8, 2014, at 7:30
Esa-Pekka Salonen Conductor Clyne < Bartók Suite from The Miraculous Mandarin, Op. 19 Intermission Sibelius Four Legends from the Kalevala, Op. 22 Lemminkäinen and the Maidens of Saari Lemminkäinen in Tuonela The Swan of Tuonela Scott Hostetler, english horn Lemminkäinen’s Return CSO Tuesday series concerts are sponsored by United Airlines. This program is partially supported by grants from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts. CommEntS by Phillip Huscher anna Clyne Born March 9, 1980, London, England. < Th e work by Anna Clyne With most of her compositions, including that our orchestra is < ComPoSEd InStrUmEntatIon aPProXImatE 2005; revised 2006, 2010 two fl utes and piccolo, two oboes, PErFormanCE tImE two clarinets, two bassoons, four 7 minutes FIrSt PErFormanCE horns, two trumpets, two trombones, February 17, 2005; Manhattan School harp, piano, bass drum, suspended of Music, new york City cymbal, crotales, ratchet, snare drum, brake drum, xylophone, tam-tam, FIrSt CSo PErFormanCES vibraphone, sizzle cymbal, low metal These are the fi rst Chicago Symphony pipe, laptop, timpani, strings Orchestra performances. 2 lyne has composed two works for the Anna Clyne comments on < 3 Béla Bartók Born March 25, 1881, Nagyszentmiklós, Hungary. Died September 26, 1945, New York City. Suite from The Miraculous Mandarin, op. 19 After Th e Miraculous year. Although a piano reduction was published Mandarin, Bartók never in 1925, Bartók wasn’t satisfi ed with the ending again attempted to write (he had had similar trouble with the conclusion music for the theater. His of Bluebeard’s Castle) and continued to fuss with fi rst stage works, the it. He didn’t put his fi nal thoughts on paper opera Bluebeard’s Castle until 1931. and the ballet Th e Wooden When Bartók discovered that Universal Prince, fared well enough Editions, his Viennese publisher, was advertising (although it took six years the Mandarin as a ballet, he protested: “I have to get the opera pro- to observe that this work is less a ballet than a duced), but Th e Miraculous Mandarin gave Bartók pantomime, since only two dances actually occur continual diffi culty. For the rest of his career, he in it. It would therefore be much more practical wrote only concert works—a decision that to call it a pantomime.” produced a number of masterpieces, but denied Even before he fi nished orchestrating the score, the development of his theatrical talent. Bartók began to doubt that he would ever see the In 1917, while he was putting the fi nishing work staged. In fact, the performance history of touches on Th e Wooden Prince, Bartók read Th e Miraculous Mandarin is marked by such for- Menyhért Lengyel’s libretto for Th e Miraculous midable struggles that the score didn’t receive the Mandarin in a Hungarian literary magazine. acclamation it deserves until after the composer’s (Lengyel had his sights set on the combination death. Only then did musicians understand that of Sergei Diaghilev’s Russian troupe and the it was Bartók’s greatest work to date—in 1927, he composer Ernő Dohnányi to create a ballet based himself wrote: “In my view, this is the best work on his scenario.) Bartók immediately informed I have so far written for orchestra”—the strongest Lengyel of his interest in the story and began of his three stage works, and his fi rst statement in to write music. His fi rst sketches date from his unique mature style. August 1917. He worked on the piano score in Had Th e Miraculous Mandarin been staged 1918 and early 1919, completed the orchestration under diff erent circumstances, it might have in 1923, and made further revisions the following earned a page in history books alongside the ComPoSEd december 9 & 10, 2006, Carnegie CSo rECordIngS pantomime: 1917 to 1924 Hall. Pierre Boulez conducting 1954. Antal doráti conducting. suite: completed February 1927 (complete pantomime) Mercury (suite) 1967. Jean Martinon conducting. RCA FIrSt PErFormanCES InStrUmEntatIon (suite) complete pantomime: november 27, three fl utes and two piccolos, three 1926; Cologne, Germany oboes and english horn, three 1968. istván Kertész conducting. CSO clarinets, e-fl at clarinet and bass (Chicago Symphony Orchestra: The First suite: October 15, 1928; Budapest, clarinet, three bassoons and contra- 100 Years) (suite) Hungary bassoon, four horns, three trumpets, 1989–90. Sir Georg Solti conducting. three trombones, tuba, timpani, side FIrSt CSo PErFormanCES London (suite) drums, bass drum, cymbals, triangle, december 9 & 10, 1948, Orchestra Hall. tam-tam, xylophone, harp, celesta, 1994. Chicago Symphony Chorus; eugene Ormandy conducting (suite) piano, organ, strings duain wolfe, director; Pierre Boulez conducting. deutsche Grammophon moSt rECEnt aPProXImatE (complete pantomime) CSo PErFormanCES PErFormanCE tImE november 30, december 1, 2 & 5, 21 minutes 2006, Orchestra Hall. Pierre Boulez conducting (complete pantomime) 4 scandalous premiere of Stravinsky’s The Rite of victims, an old rake and a shy young man, Spring, for it is music of equally gripping power are penniless; the third, the eerie but wealthy and invention. (In 1913, when Paris was reeling mandarin, presents a horrifying challenge. The from the shock of The Rite of Spring, Bartók girl finds him repulsive, but she slowly begins was in Algeria collecting folk songs; at the time her dance of seduction. The thugs attack and he drafted The Miraculous Mandarin, he knew rob the mandarin; three times they try to kill Stravinsky’s score by reputation and in a piano him, but the mandarin will not die. His eyes are reduction.) The premiere of The Miraculous fixed with longing on the girl. When she finally Mandarin, in the conservative city of Cologne in embraces him, he falls lifeless to the ground. November 1926, caused an uproar. The audience (The suite stops just before the thugs attack the walked out, the conductor was officially repri- mandarin.) Bartók carefully underlines the story’s manded by the mayor Konrad Adenauer, and design. Three times the music begins from a total the work was subsequently banned. But Cologne standstill and builds to a shattering climax— wasn’t at the heart of the music world, and it each section, or “decoy game,” as Bartók calls wasn’t the composer’s hometown; the incident it, represents one of the seductions. Bartók uses passed without making international headlines. orchestration to articulate form, launching each The Miraculous Mandarin wasn’t staged in seduction with a solo clarinet and marking each Budapest until 1946, after the composer’s death, of the murder attempts with cymbal crashes. and a quarter of a century after the score was Bartók begins with the noise and frenzy of finished. A production in Budapest had been the urban landscape. (Late in his life, he admit- announced in 1931, as part of the celebration ted that New York City traffic frightened him honoring Bartók’s fiftieth birthday, but it was terribly.) After the clarinet signals the first decoy canceled after the dress rehearsal, when officials game, a lewd old man is depicted by the sound of got wind of the work’s subject matter. Another raucous trombone slides. The attack of the thugs performance scheduled for 1941 was opposed by brings a furious orchestral outburst. The second the clergy. The problems were both the graphic, decoy game introduces a shy young man, accom- intense music and the story—a violent and panied by a gentle oboe solo. He dances with erotic tale with implicit social criticism. In 1927, the girl, cautiously at first, then with unexpected sensing that the odds were against ever getting passion. Again the thugs attack. the work staged, Bartók made the orchestral For the third time, the clarinet announces a suite that’s performed at these concerts from the decoy game. At the mandarin’s entrance, the full score. It’s in this form—essentially the first trombones let out three shattering cries. The two-thirds of the complete pantomime—that The music stops except for two notes in the horns, Miraculous Mandarin has become known. sustained forever, it seems, like the mandarin’s piercing gaze. A slow dance of seduction begins. artók was strongly drawn to Lengyel’s A waltz starts, falters, and picks up again; a powerful and fantastic tale. As The frantic chase ensues. The music builds to a fever Miraculous Mandarin begins, a girl is pitch, pushed almost beyond the breaking point, forced by three thugs to stand in a window, and, although the story itself isn’t over yet, the B luring men inside to be robbed. Her first two suite ends with music of breathtaking finality. 5 Jean Sibelius Born December 8, 1865, Tavastehus, Finland. Died September 20, 1957, Järvenpää, Finland. Four legends from the Kalevala, op. 22 When Jean Sibelius fi rst hear Larin Paraske, a well-known runic singer, read the Finnish national perform episodes from the Kalevala, carefully epic poem, the Kalevala, observing the infl ections of her singing in ways as a young student, he that would infl uence his own musical style. found the inspiration for much of the music that n 1893, Sibelius began his fi rst opera, would one day make him Th e Building of the Boat, inspired by the famous and also label him Kalevala. Th e next summer he went to somewhat unfairly as a IBayreuth, where he attended more perfor- nationalistic composer. In mances of Wagner’s operas than he would fact, Sibelius’s fi rst major composition, the ever admit, falling entirely under the spell of expansive Kullervo, based on the Kalevala, was the profoundly intoxicating music, but also such a success in 1892 that, from that point on, realizing the competition he would face if he Finland looked no farther for its greatest com- pursued an operatic career. He abandoned poser. (Th e impact of Sibelius’s exposure to the Th e Building of the Boat almost as soon as he Kalevala on the rest of his career is closely returned home. (Th is trip to Bayreuth was paralleled by Bartók’s famous discovery of also motivated by the chance to see how Hungarian folk song a decade later.) another composer had chosen to deal with Sibelius’s absorption in the Kalevala was a great national epic, the Nibelungenlied.) only possible because his family made the Th e Swan of Tuonela is what Sibelius salvaged forward-looking decision to transfer him, at the from Th e Building of the Boat—music so strik- age of seven, from a popular Swedish-language ing that one cannot help but wonder about the preparatory school to the brand-new, fi rst-ever operatic career that Wagner, in eff ect, cut short. Finnish-language grammar school. (Until it was Sibelius conceived this dark and moody music as founded, Swedish and Latin were the stan- the prelude to his opera, and, although it makes dard languages of the Finnish school system.) an unconventional operatic opening, it is close to Although Sibelius didn’t truly master Finnish perfection as a small tone poem. Sibelius real- till he was in his twenties, this exposure to the ized that at once. In 1896, only two years after sounds and rhythms of the language fi red his the Bayreuth experience, Sibelius had come to imagination at an early age, and sparked his terms with the new direction of his career and ongoing project of reading and rereading the introduced Th e S wan and three other tone poems Kalevala. By 1891, his interest in the epic was as Four Pieces from the Kalevala (sometimes so consuming that he made a special trip to known as the Lemminkäinen Suite). ComPoSEd InStrUmEntatIon CSo rECordIngS 1893–1896 two fl utes and two piccolos, two oboes (THe Swan OF TUOneLa) and english horn, two clarinets and 1940. Robert Mayer as soloist, FIrSt PErFormanCE bass clarinet, two bassoons, four horns, Frederick Stock conducting. Columbia April 13, 1896; Helsinki, Finland three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, 1991. Grover Schiltz as soloist, Herbert timpani, triangle, tambourine, bells, Blomstedt conducting. CSO (From bass drum, cymbals, harp, strings the Archives, vol. 15: Soloists of the Orchestra II) aPProXImatE PErFormanCE tImE 46 minutes 6 a straight narrative arc—in fact, particularly in their original sequence, the four pieces don’t attempt to tell the story in “order.” (When Sibelius conducted the first performance in 1896, the two middle movements were played in the order in which they appear in this week’s performances. When the Four Legends were finally published as a set in 1954, the sequence of the two middle movements was reversed.) The first (and the longest) of the pieces, Lemminkäinen and the Maidens of Saari, is a brilliant atmosphere piece, from the mysterious Larin Paraske. Painting by Albert Edelfelt, 1893 opening measures that offer our initial sighting of an ancient, unknown land slowly coming into view. Musically, this is prime Sibelius territory, he Four Legends from the Kalevala with its frenetic energy of spinning woodwind all revolve around the figure of melodies and stirring strings, and with its Lemminkäinen, a young and powerful long stretches of dancing activity over low, hero—notT unlike Wagner’s Siegfried—and long-held pedal notes. There are also passionate something of a Don Juan as well. Each of the lyrical themes that suggest Lemminkäinen’s four tone poems captures a decisive moment in erotic adventures. Lemminkäinen’s adventures—hunting, seduc- Lemminkäinen in Tuonela begins with the ing, fighting, and, through his mother’s magical unforgettable sound of the turbulent, dark powers, even surviving his own death. (Her waters of the River of Death, which will carry magic powers allow her to stitch together the Lemminkäinen’s body to Tuonela. (The surging shreds of his mutilated body and bring him back strings are especially ominous.) The middle to life.) Sibelius wasn’t interested in following section, primarily scored for strings, is one of the composer’s finest effects; even- Lemminkäinen and the Maidens of Saari tually it is dominated by long, sinuous melodies (revolving, FIRST CSO PERFORMANCES MOST RECENT recitation-like, around just a April 5, 6 & 7, 1984, Orchestra Hall. CSO PERFORMANCES few pitches)—the runic singing Henry Mazer conducting November 17, 18, 19 & 22, 2005, Orchestra Hall. Jukka-Pekka of Larin Paraske brought to Saraste conducting life. The end is cold and bleak. The Swan of Tuonela, the first of these four tone poems to Lemminkäinen in Tuonela be composed, was originally FIRST CSO PERFORMANCES MOST RECENT performed as the third piece, November 14, 15 & 16, 1996, Orchestra CSO PERFORMANCES as it is this week (and then later Hall. Robert Spano conducting November 17, 18, 19 & 22, 2005, moved to second place, when Orchestra Hall. Jukka-Pekka the complete set was pub- Saraste conducting lished). At the top of the score Sibelius wrote: The Swan of Tuonela and Tuonela, the land of death, Lemminkäinen’s Return the hell of Finnish mythol- FIRST CSO PERFORMANCES MOST RECENT ogy, is surrounded by a large December 6 & 7, 1901, Auditorium CSO PERFORMANCES river of black waters and Theatre. Theodore Thomas conducting November 17, 18, 19 & 22, 2005, a rapid current, in which (U.S. premiere) Orchestra Hall. Jukka-Pekka the swan of Tuonela glides Saraste conducting majestically, singing. 7 The Kalevala, Finland’s national epic The Kalevala was originally published In the beginning, the poetry was sung By the shores of Gitche Gumee, in 1835 and then enlarged for a second (the word runo originally meant sung). By the shining Big-Sea-Water edition that came out in 1849, which is The meter of the Kalevala, like now considered the standard version. that of most ancient Finnish poetry, In fact, Longfellow wanted to It has 50 runos or cantos, totaling is trochaic tetrameter, which is best convey the impression of an oral 22,795 lines. This edition was compiled known to the English-speaking poetry, and he settled on a meter by Elias Lönnrot (1802–1884), whose public from Longfellow’s The Song for Hiawatha after reading a German structural ideal was the Iliad by Homer. of Hiawatha: translation of the Kalevala. The music vividly paints the scene: a plaintive Here the islands, there the channels, english horn melody rides serenely over deep saw the ancient landing-stages, string sonorities. (The strings—con sordino, or saw the former dwelling places. muted, throughout—are divided into thirteen separate lines; these, in turn, are often further Sibelius writes music of extraordinary thrust, subdivided.) There is a glimpse of sunlight, sig- generated by the galloping rhythm suggested naled by the harp, as the music reaches C major. by the bassoon at the outset. Through the use But the swan sails off again into the darkness. of ostinato patterns and the continual ripple of Sibelius’s sense of mood and color is keen. His sixteenth notes, he never lets the momentum understanding of sonority, even at this early stage flag. Neither of Sibelius’s first two symphonies in his career, is singular: listen, for example, to has a finale to match the excitement and suspense how the swan’s song fades over a quietly beating of this Kalevala music. Within a matter of years, drum as an icy chill sweeps through the strings he would leave the world of the symphonic poem (playing tremolos col legno, or with the wood of behind and find ways to achieve comparable the bow). effects within the traditional form of the sym- The finale of the set, Lemminkäinen’s Return, phony, but he never surpassed the brilliant drama is triumphant music of homecoming. Sibelius and color of the music he composed under the quotes from the poem: spell of the Kalevala. Then the lively Lemminkäinen started on his homeward journey, Phillip Huscher is the program annotator for the Chicago saw the lands and saw the beaches. Symphony Orchestra. © 2014 Chicago Symphony Orchestra 8